On Someone Else's Shore
by Red Bess Rackham
Summary: During his time in limbo searching for Saito, Dom finds someone who isn't waiting to die alone – he's already dead. Complete.
1. Cobb

**Disclaimer:** The freaking awesomeness that is Inception does in no way belong to me, nor does anything Harry Potter.

**A/n:** Inception freaking rocked my world and I certainly plan to come up with something better than this for a fic for it. I can't get this one idea out of my head, however, so here it goes. Don't expect brilliance, as this is rather on the fly during my (slightly early) lunch break here.

* * *

**On Someone Else's Shore**

It's not a barren wasteland like he might have expected once upon a time. Long before him and Mal began their experiments to go as deep as possible, he had always sort of imagined a big, open desert with bits of junk scattered about, half-buried in the sand. There was indeed sand, as he and Mal later discovered, but there was ocean and rocks, buildings and so on, too.

The second time he's there, after Robert and Ariadne take the Kick, after the Mal projection has faded away, he's not there to experiment or build. He's there to find Saito and bring him back to the surface, preferably before their brains turn into nothing up there or his mind falls away and he forgets everything down here.

As he wanders deserted streets, he realizes he's not exactly sure what to do, where to start and this is new for him. He's very good at figuring things out, at thinking ahead and instinctively knowing what to do. He's at a loss as to what to do here now, how to find Saito.

The problem is that when he was previously down here, he was focused on Mal and their children and the world they built, and that's all he saw. Their world, usually void of other people, or sometimes fleeting images or shadows just out of reach, memories just out of his grasp. At the time, it didn't matter that other people, projections, didn't bother them. It was just him and Mal and their world and their memories.

So if this was his world, how did he find someone _else_ in it?

* * *

The answer he discovers more by accident than anything else. After spending weeks searching buildings, streets, houses and so on in what is his abandoned world, there's only one place to go. So he wanders down to the shore and is somehow unsurprised to see an old boat there. He gets in and starts rowing for the horizon.

Sunburnt and exhausted, he finally hits another shore. He finds another city, also right on the shoreline but different. He doesn't really take in the details as he takes shelter immediately and sleeps - dreamlessly, of course, and it feels like he's just simply _not there_ for a mere few seconds before opening his eyes again, no longer dead on his feet. It's still sunny out and though he aches all over, he gets up and begins searching this city for his friend, noting with a certain amusement that he now considers Saito a "friend" after their experiences together.

* * *

It continues like this for a very long time, and he begins to lose track of how long, begins to forget why he's there or what he's doing. He keeps going on, determined to reach his goal, even if he can no longer remember what it is.

* * *

Sometimes in the cities and on the new shores he finds, there are people. Sometimes they interact with him, sometimes they don't seem to see him or know he exists. At one point, he heads underground into a strange building that has sunny windows though it's certainly a good hundred feet below the pavement. Normally this would be strange, but after all he's seen, he doesn't think anything is all that strange anymore.

In this building, he searches the hundreds of rooms, using the lift at the end of a hallway, and discovers more floors. Everything is empty, but it seems to be an office complex of sorts. Everything is still, deserted.

He takes the lift to a floor that opens to a dark hallway with a single door at the end. He approaches it, and when he enters, he's surprised to see a giant room, built much like a stadium, behind it. Down in the centre of the room is a tall stone archway and a moth-eaten curtain hanging from it. It sways slightly as if there is a breeze, though there is not one that he can feel.

He stares at the archway for a good period of time, perplexed and intrigued by it. But then he feels the need to move on, knows instinctively that this is not what he is searching for – _but what is? _- and moves on.

* * *

He is ready to leave this city, having not found whatever it is he needs to find – _he'll know it when he sees it, he's certain of that, at least._ When he reaches the beach, he finds a tall man with longish dark hair standing still and staring out at the sea. He's wearing some sort of robe and when Dom goes to walk past him, ignoring him, to Dom's utter surprise, the man speaks.

"I don't remember you," he says.

Dom turns, and realizes he has almost forgotten how to speak – _how long has it been_? He's not even sure how to respond, but it doesn't matter, as the man speaks again anyway.

"I don't remember much anymore, though, so that's not really saying something." The ghost of a smile appears on the man's lips. "How did you get here?"

Dom squints, racking his brain for the answer, which seems such a simple one to give. _He and Mal...?_ No, that was before. _Before what? _A few faces flash in his mind but he can't hold onto them. Then he thinks he can remember a storm and someone falling...

"It was a job," he finally says. "I'm here to finish the job."

"Did you die too?" asks the man.

Dom has never considered this possibility before. Instantly he feels scared, like he failed and then there's a desperate need to run. He hears a voice, then, that says, _"Find Saito. Come back."_

"No." Dom states firmly and the panic subsides.

The man looks surprised for a moment, then sort of shrugs and turns his eyes back to the ocean.

Dom is about to leave, but something... there's something keeping him rooted here. "Are you... Saito?" he questions hesitantly.

The man shakes his head. "Sirius Black."

"Are _you_ dead?"

A heavy pause. "I think so."

Dom shifts his weight to his other foot, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry."

Sirius turns and gives Dom a small, haunted smile.

After a few minutes, he turns to leave and Dom finds his boat. Just a few days later, both had already forgotten about the other.

* * *

It's either months or years later and Dom survives a freak storm that destroys his little boat. He's kept his gun the whole time, though he has no idea how or even how to operate it anymore. He washes up on yet another shore and this time the people there take serious note of him. They haul him up into the Asian style house on the rocks and when Dom meets the host, something clicks.

"_Waiting to die alone..."_

"_From a half-remembered dream..."_

_This is it._

"Saito," Dom says to the ancient man across the table from him. "Come back."

And they do.

* * *

**A/n:** This was tougher to write than I expected for some reason. I just had this strong picture in my mind of Dom finding the veil in the Department of Mysteries (or perhaps what the veil connects to...) while he was in limbo, and then everything else sort of was built around that. I wasn't even sure if Dom was going to meet Sirius, but he showed up, and ya. There will be a second chapter for this, about Sirius instead of Dom, because there's one more specific idea kicking around in my brainbox for this mini-crossover. Anyways, thanks for reading! Reviews are like oxygen.


	2. Black

**A/n:** Here's part 2, showing a bit about Sirius' side up to DH (it's important you remember a specific scene near the end of the book for this). Again, not the best thing I've ever written, but I like the general concept. And if Part 1 confused you - well, it was supposed to a bit. :D Enjoy this and thanks for the reviews for part 1!

* * *

At first, it was black. Right after her spell hit, where he had no time to actually realize what had happened. There just wasn't anything. No feeling, no thoughts, nothing. Indescribable and strange.

Then he was laying, flat on his back, in the same stone room. He was on the other side of the veil, and as he sat up, his body throbbed as though he'd run a few marathons and then not moved for several hours. His first thought as he gazed around the large empty room was one of surprise and annoyance.

_They left?_ He struggled to a standing position, using the archway for support. He couldn't believe that the fight had ended and everyone had simply left. Had they not checked to see if he was alright?

He then realized as he looked around the room that there were no traces of the battle he'd just been apart of. No blood, broken rocks, that kind of thing. He didn't know what to think then and slowly made his way out of the stone room.

* * *

The entirety of the Ministry was completely deserted. There was no trace of dust and decay, it was just empty, as though everyone had left for the day and would be back tomorrow. Yet at the same time, despite the lack of aging, it felt to him as though it'd been empty for an extremely long time. He didn't understand what could have happened, wondered if there were charms in place to keep everything from aging.

He ventured outside.

* * *

He'd seen a lot of strange things in his life, to be sure. He was a wizard, he'd dealt with the monster that was Voldemort, he'd experienced the horrors of Azkaban. This... _world_ (there was no other word for it, he supposed) was the very definition of strange in every way.

He saw things – buildings and places, mostly – that he recognized. They would seem to appear as he thought about them, though simultaneously seem like they had been there all along. There was no one else around, though sometimes he felt like someone was waiting for him just around the next corner.

After several days of searching this curious place, Sirius decided he was either dreaming or dead, and based on the last image in his mind, with Bellatrix snarling out an Unforgivable Curse, he certainly favored the latter notion. He knew this wasn't heaven but couldn't quite accept it as hell either – surely it'd have to be loads more unpleasant if it were hell?

* * *

He tried going back through the veil countless times. He became desperate to get back, to get back to the fight, to get back to Harry. He couldn't just leave them all behind. But no matter what he did, the veil maddeningly did not yield it's secrets or let Sirius cross back to the world he had left.

* * *

Time was impossible to understand. Sometimes it felt normal, sometimes it felt like days were spanning as quickly as seconds or as slowly as years. There was no consistency and there wasn't any specific rhythm to the way the sun set and the moon rose either. It would just happen on it's own accord.

He continued wandering and thinking and soon his memories began to fade. He began to forget why he was there, how he got there... everything.

_It was all a dream..._

* * *

"Are _you_ dead?" the man asked.

He struggled for a moment and then slowly, as if from very far away, through a thick mist, he thought he could hear a cackle of laughter. Somewhere out on the beach, he thought he could see a woman with dark hair shouting at him but he couldn't hear her, and then she was gone.

"I think so." he finally said.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

He was laying on the floor of the roof of a building, watching the blue sky. There were no clouds, but that didn't matter. The plain blue was calming, in the same strange way the rest of this world was now normal to him.

An image had come to him today of a young man with black hair, walking through trees. He didn't know what it meant and had wandered aimlessly up the stairs of a tall building, thinking with no logic whatsoever that being closer to the calm blue sky would help him understand something about the boy with the black hair.

Then the sky began to darken and clouds rolled in, unnaturally fast. He furrowed his brow.

_Storm?_

Suddenly as the sky began to split apart with lightning, an overwhelming thrill of excitement and anticipation came over him. Memories flashed in his mind with sudden clarity that he hadn't experienced in years, and he ran for the edge the building, heart pounding.

He didn't think twice, somehow knowing what to do, and jumped off.

* * *

"Does it hurt?" Harry asks.

"No, it doesn't hurt. It's like falling asleep."

**-end-**

* * *

**A/n:** So, it was supposed to be fairly vague and nonsensical. One note for clarity's sake however: in DH when Harry uses the Resurrection Stone, that was basically the Kick to bring Sirius up out of limbo (which is what the veil in the DoM connects to), mind and memories restored. Then when Harry drops the Stone, Sirius is finally at peace and out of limbo/back in reality, so he can finally join James, Lily and now Lupin. And that's it! Thanks for reading and I love hearing feedback, so leave me a review. :D


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